Herrera wants court to confirm SF tax measure needs only...

1of3SF city attorney Dennis Herrera (at podium) and Oakland city attorney Barbara Parker (behind him) announce they had filed separate lawsuits on behalf of their respective cities against the five-largest investor-owned producers of fossil fuels on the Embardadero at Brannan streets on Wednesday, September 20, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif.Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

2of3San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera.Photo: Paul Kuroda / Special to The Chronicle

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera is seeking a court order to help shield a ballot measure passed by voters in June against potential legal challenges.

In paperwork filed Friday, Herrera asked San Francisco Superior Court to validate the city’s use of a simple-majority vote to pass Proposition G.

The filing comes after another successful June ballot measure, Prop. C, became the target of a lawsuit that could block its implementation and, by extension, that of Prop. G.

Prop. G, which passed with nearly 61 percent of the vote, sought to provide a $5,500 boost to teachers’ salaries by levying a $298 parcel tax that would generate around $50 million annually.

For more than two decades, passing a new tax measure for a specific purpose — like funding teacher wage hikes — has required a two-thirds majority to pass at the ballot. But last year, a memo from the city attorney’s office interpreting a recent state Supreme Court ruling argued that if a proposed tax measure was put on the ballot by citizens — and not the government — it would require only a simple majority to pass.

Last month, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association took aim at Prop. C, which sought to raise commercial rents to fund a variety of child care and early education programs. The measure narrowly passed, with just under 51 percent of the vote, prompting the group to sue and to label Prop. C as an “illegal special tax” that needed a two-thirds vote to pass.

Now, Herrera wants the courts to sign off on his office’s interpretation of the voter threshold for Prop. G. But the fates of Prop. C and Prop. G are, to some extent, intertwined. If a judge agrees with Herrera’s memo, it could provide extra ammunition in his Prop C. case against the taxpayers association.

“San Francisco is confident that when voters act through the initiative process a simple majority vote is required, rather than the two-thirds majority required when local officials act,” said John Coté, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office. “We proactively brought this case to get the certainty that a court order will provide on this issue in order to uphold the will of the voters.”

— Dominic Fracassa

Back and forth: District Six candidate Sonja Trauss has repeatedly switched her position on Proposition 10, a November state ballot measure that would repeal California’s limits on local rent control laws.

At first, Trauss — a pro-development candidate who built the national pro-housing movement dubbed YIMBY — “Yes in My Backyard” — supported the measure. Then she reversed her opinion last week in conversation with The Chronicle's editorial board, saying she was concerned how the measure could stifle development around the Bay Area.

“It’s clear that there is political will all over the state to use laws that have a nice social justice goal to do something that is harmful, like suppress housing development,” she told the editorial board, which has come out against Prop. 10. “And the Yes on 10 folks don’t have a good answer for that.”

But now she’s changed her mind again. Trauss told The Chronicle Monday that over the weekend she met a voter on Treasure Island who made a “compelling case” that allowing local governments to extend rent control to more people is the “next step in tenants rights.”

Few measures have been watched closer for the November election than Prop. 10, which would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a 1995 law that limits cities’ ability to impose rent control. Under the law, San Francisco cannot extend rent control laws to units built after 1979.

Supporters of Prop. 10 argue that local governments should be able to set rent control laws, while those against it say local governments could impose rent control laws so strict that developers are discouraged from building.

While Trauss said she does not support giving local governments the authority to set rent control laws, she wants to repeal Costa-Hawkins so California has a clean slate to create a new law that extends rent control to more people.

Her competitor Christine Johnson — who is running a joint campaign with Trauss — has also reframed her answer when it comes to Prop. 10. Johnson said at a United Democratic Club debate in July and at a San Francisco Berniecrats endorsement interview in August that she supports Prop. 10. But in following interviews with The Chronicle, Johnson has declined to state her position.

“What I have always meant to talk about is what I would do if it passes,” Johnson said Monday, adding that she would focus on creating a vacancy tax and more rent controlled housing stock on a local level.

A third candidate in the race, school board member Matt Haney, said he supports Proposition 10.

“It’s important that we have local control,” he told the editorial board.